[Mb-civic] McCarthyism: Mary and Joe

[ean at sbcglobal.net]

McCarthyism: Mary and Joe
By Ray McGovern
t r u t h o u t | Perspective

Tuesday 25 April 2006

As additional information on the firing of CIA official Mary McCarthy
just ten days short of her retirement becomes available, what is afoot is
becoming quite clear. We are witnessing a Stalinesque show trial sans the
actual trial and inevitable execution. The purpose is intimidation, not
extermination. We should be thankful for small favors, I suppose.

There has been no sign they put on the handcuffs as they "escorted"
McCarthy out of the office last week. And it appears she will get off
relatively lightly - with the character assassination regarded as
appropriate for any "traitor" independently in touch with the press. And
then there is the stigma that CIA Director Porter Goss, the staffers he
brought with him from Congress (not-so-affectionately known as "the
gosslings"), and Rush Limbaugh believe should inevitably attach to anyone
who gave $2,000 to the Kerry campaign.

Goss and his "independent" Inspector General Danny Kaye - oops, I mean
35-year CIA veteran John Helgersen - are determined to show their patron,
Vice President Dick Cheney, some results from the unprecedented rash of
"single-issue" polygraph tests now being administered to CIA employees.
Beware, all ye who have let the word "media" slip into consciousness. It's
sweaty-palms time at CIA headquarters. The Fourth Estate has morphed into a
Fifth Column.

The current witch-hunt atmosphere in Langley calls to mind that of
February 1973 when James Schlesinger was appointed to replace the
not-sufficiently-malleable Richard Helms as President Richard Nixon's CIA
director. Watergate was unfolding and Nixon's poll numbers then were about
what President George W. Bush's are now. At his first plenary meeting with
CIA managers, Schlesinger came on rather strong: "I am here to make sure you
guys don't screw Richard Nixon. And, just so you get the picture, I shall be
reporting to Bob Haldeman, not to Henry Kissinger." Haldeman was Nixon's
chief of staff; Kissinger his national security adviser (the customary
contact for a CIA director).

The recent Washington Post report, quoting intelligence officials to the
effect that "the White House has recently barraged the agency with questions
about the political affiliations of some of its senior intelligence
officers" is an especially alarming sign. Let all those who gave Kerry
$2,000 beware. Goss and gosslings are in position to finish destroying any
vestige of non-partisanship and objectivity at the CIA. Who is to stop them?
John Negroponte who, as ambassador to Honduras, helped run the Contra war in
Nicaragua for CIA Director William Casey and feigned ignorance of the
rampant death squads there?

Back to McCarthy (Mary)

Whether or not Mary McCarthy was among the many sources used by
Washington Post reporter Dana Priest for her Pulitzer Prize-winning story on
the secret prisons run by CIA abroad, the PR folks at Langley have shot
themselves in the foot by calling renewed attention to the kidnappings,
"extraordinary renditions," and torture which Cheney and the president have
had the agency carry out on so grand a scale. And we can rest assured that
the hunt for patriotic truth tellers (aka leakers) will continue apace.

But it is also likely that the truth telling will continue. And, in the
end, the truth tellers will be glad they did. The years of Bush, Cheney, and
Goss are limited, and they will not be able to repeal 18 US Code 2441 (the
War Crimes Act of 1996 condemning torture) before going out the door. In
addition, potential truth tellers have become increasingly aware of the
seldom-mentioned "Nuremberg obligation" to do what one reasonably can to
prevent the commission of international crimes like torture.

By conducting these activities overseas, Bush's lawyers thought they
might dodge the US criminal statute. Maybe so. But international sanctions
also apply. Will Donald Rumsfeld be able to travel to Europe once he loses
his Secret Service protection and that afforded by the office of secretary
of defense? Will CIA operatives, like the notorious keystone-cops kidnapping
crew in Milan, be able to vacation on the Riviera? Interpol knows who they
are.

Those inside the government who become privy to - or, worse still,
become responsible for - such criminal activity have a legal as well as a
moral obligation to blow the whistle. So take heart, past or future truth
tellers. With the polygraph, they may eventually track you down. But it is
bound to be awkward indeed to take you to court for revealing war crimes.
And you will have earned not only a badge of courage but also exculpatory
evidence in the event there are prosecutions - here or abroad.

Staying Within "Grievance Channels"

Sunday's Washington Post quoted an unnamed "former senior intelligence
official" saying he thought a majority of CIA officers would probably agree
with the firing of McCarthy if, as the CIA alleges, she "knowingly and
willfully shared classified intelligence" with journalists (which she has
now denied). "A small number might support her, but the ethic of the
business is not to leak," said the former official, adding that one should
stay within official grievance channels.

That's what my colleague CIA analyst Sam Adams did 40 years ago - and
came to rue the day. Through painstaking research in Washington, combined
with imaginative bar-hopping in Vietnam, Adams discovered that Gen. William
Westmoreland's staff in Saigon had been ordered to keep Communist force
figures artificially low (about half the actual strength), in order to
project a picture of progress. When the countrywide offensive at Tet in
late-January/early-February 1968 gave the lie to Westmoreland's figures and
vindicated Adams, Sam tried manfully to hold the culprits accountable by
going to the CIA's and the Pentagon's inspectors general. He got the
proverbial run-around, and some 30,000 additional US troops and a million
more Vietnamese fell before the war was over six years later. Adams was
never able to shake his nagging remorse at the thought that he might have
helped prevent further carnage, had he gone out of "official channels" and
briefed his findings to the then-free mainstream press. He died at 55 when
his heart gave out.

The tragedy of Sam Adams is well known, even to those, like Mary
McCarthy, who joined the Agency many years after Sam left. From his present
perch, I relish the thought that he is pleased that others may have learned
a valuable lesson from the frustration he encountered by "staying within
official grievance channels."

Like Sam, Mary McCarthy is an independent thinker, which she proved
during her tenure as Senior Director for Intelligence Programs at the White
House from 1998 to 2001. There she achieved some notoriety for the personal
letter she sent President Bill Clinton, criticizing the flimsiness of the
"intelligence" that led to the cruise missile strike on the Sudanese
pharmaceutical plant that some suggested might be producing chemical warfare
agent. She was correct, but then-CIA director George Tenet vouched for the
"evidence," testosterone won the day, and they blew the place up.

Torturous Decisions

Those paying attention to the issue of torture by the CIA and the Army
will recall the tortured memorandum of January 25, 2002, authored by David
Addington (then-counsel to Vice President Dick Cheney and now Cheney's chief
of staff) and signed by then-White House counsel Alberto Gonzales. That memo
argued that "Geneva's strict limitations on questioning enemy prisoners"
were "obsolete" in the new war-on-terror paradigm. Still, Addington/Gonzales
felt compelled to remind the president that US criminal code, the War Crimes
Act (18 USC 2441), with its draconian penalties (including death) could come
into play.

That statute pins the "war crime" label on any grave breach of Geneva,
like "outrages against personal dignity," regardless of whether the detainee
qualifies as a prisoner of war. Addington and Gonzales warned the president
of the danger that he could be prosecuted under that law by a future
independent counsel, but reassured him that there is a "reasonable basis in
law that Section 2441 does not apply, which would provide a solid defense to
any future prosecution." That was good enough for President Bush, who on
February 7, 2002, signed a memorandum saying that detainees should be
treated humanely, "as appropriate and consistent with military necessity."
And that is the loophole through which Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld
drove a Mack truck. The "rotten apples" were at the very top of the barrel.

The infamous memorandum of January 25 was leaked to Newsweek, which
published it and others like it in May 2004. The tortured reasoning was
greeted with widespread scorn by the US legal profession and in August 2004
roundly condemned by the American Bar Association, 12 former federal judges,
former Attorney General Nicholas Katzenbach, former FBI Director William
Sessions, and many others. The ABA formally condemned the administration's
treatment of detainees and called upon it to "comply fully" with the US
Constitution and international laws and conventions ratified by the US that
outlaw torture. It was that same year, 2004, when the torture of prisoners
was depicted in the leaked photos from Abu Ghraib, that Mary McCarthy
returned to the CIA from a sabbatical that followed her stint at the White
House.

Those who have worked with her testify to her respect for law and
regulation. That she had more than passing interest in, and respect for the
law is suggested not only by her decision several years ago to attend law
school at night, but also by the hackles she reportedly raised among
testosterone-laden operatives who saw her in her White House role as an
annoying hindrance to aggressive tactics against terrorists.

Back at CIA, Mary McCarthy assumed a position in the office of CIA
Inspector General John Helgersen, who is responsible for internal
investigations of wrongdoing by the agency and has extraordinary access to
secrets deprived to others under the need-to-know principle. It is well
known that agency personnel, who witnessed torture by the US military in
Guantanamo, for example, complained to superiors and to the White House. It
is a safe bet that some agency officers also registered objections to
"extraordinary rendition," including kidnapping and transporting "terrorist
suspects" to so-called black prison camps for interrogation - "with the
gloves off," in the swaggering words of then CIA chief counter-terrorism
official Cofer Black (now a vice president with the Defense contractor
Blackwater). In addition, some CIA officers may have learned of the
warrantless eavesdropping in violation of NSA's "eleventh commandment" -
thou shall not spy on Americans. In any event, it is certainly safe to say
that Helgersen's IG account had become a growth industry, with a requirement
for all the professional help it can muster. When Mary McCarthy came on
board, she no doubt gained inside insight into complaints of a variety of
abuses.

Departing From Custom

Sadly, common practice in such circumstances for someone at retirement
age, as McCarthy was, is to hunker down, retire quietly with a healthy
annuity, and then become something of a celebrity by writing a tell-all book
and going on "60 Minutes." Not McCarthy. Given the courage and independence
she showed in her earlier professional life together with her sensitivity to
the law, it is a safe bet she tried hard to get management to address the
more egregious abuses - torture and rendition, for example. It is equally
likely that she got no help from former director George Tenet or current
director Porter Goss, both of them on the end of a tight leash held by Vice
President Dick Cheney.

But could she not have turned to her new boss, "independent" Inspector
General Helgerson? As statutory IG, Helgerson does enjoy some unique
prerogatives and autonomy, should he choose to exercise them. Those familiar
with his longstanding penchant for sniffing the breezes from the White House
and director's office and trimming his sails accordingly would be shocked to
see him actually exercise those prerogatives. Rather, he has obediently
acquiesced in denying Congress the particulars of his investigations - the
one on the performance of CIA officers before September 11, 2001, for
example, which reportedly heaped criticism on Medal of Freedom awardee
George Tenet and other senior agency officials. And according to yesterday's
New York Times, "independent watchdog" Helgerson recently let himself be
talked into submitting to a polygraph exam by those he is supposed to be
"watch-dogging." Remarkable.

It seems likely that Mary McCarthy quickly saw the lay of the land and
decided the Helgerson-Goss route held no promise for success in addressing
the abuses of torture and rendition. Had she any doubts on that score, they
presumably were dispelled as she watched Director Porter Goss trot off with
Cheney to the office of Sen. John McCain to plead for an exception for the
CIA from his draft amendment banning torture. This particular mission was
not accomplished, but the president appended a "signing statement" saying,
in effect, that he feels free to disregard the McCain amendment banning
torture.

Turn to Congress?

Where else to turn? The intelligence committees of Congress? A fool's
errand. Indelibly imprinted on my mind is a remark made by CIA darling
former Congressman Charlie Wilson (D-Texas) when he took the reins of the
House Intelligence Committee during the war with the USSR in Afghanistan.
Wilson wrote to his CIA friends, "Well, gentlemen, the fox is in the hen
house. Do whatever you like." Some twenty years later, the committee's
current chairman, Pete Hoekstra (R-Mich.), has proven a worthy successor,
occasionally sniping - as he did yesterday on TV - at National Intelligence
Director John Negroponte, but essentially giving the intelligence agencies
free rein as long as they remain harnessed tightly to White House policy.

A recent episode may serve to illustrate this. Late last year, having
bowed for over a year to White House pressure to suppress New York Times
journalist James Risen's Pulitzer-winning scoop on warrantless wiretapping
by NSA, the Times management suddenly awoke to the fact that Risen's book
was about to appear. In order to avoid the embarrassment of not having
carried such a critical story by one of its own writers, the Times told the
White House that the story was about to be published. On December 5, 2005,
Times publisher Arthur Sulzberger Jr. and Washington bureau chief Philip
Taubman were summoned to an oval office meeting with President Bush, who
tried - this time in vain - to dissuade the Times from publishing the
warrantless eavesdropping story, which then appeared 11 days later (and six
weeks after Dana Priest's expose in the Post regarding secret CIA prisons
for interrogating suspected terrorists).

The White House, however, apparently forgot to inform NSA Director, Lt.
Gen. Keith Alexander that a new die was cast. The next day, December 6, the
blindsided Alexander - still following the old talking points - assured
visiting House intelligence committee member Rush Holt (D-NJ) that NSA did
not eavesdrop on Americans without a court order. When Holt later learned he
had been deliberately misled about the NSA eavesdropping program, he wrote a
blistering letter to Alexander. Nothing has been heard from Chairman
Hoekstra, though, and there is not the slightest sign he cared very much
that his colleague was lied to on a key aspect of his oversight
responsibilities. So, the director of NSA can lie with impunity to minority
members of the House intelligence committee; only the chairman counts.

This fits in well with a pattern long familiar to senior intelligence
officers. And, as Mary McCarthy watched this latest charade, she must have
felt affirmed in her apparent conviction that turning to the House
"oversight" committee would, in present circumstances, be a feckless
enterprise. And who better than she could see the high farce attached to
Hoekstra's hyperbole yesterday on FOX as he parroted (twice) what were
doubtless the "McCarthy talking points" from the White House:

"This person in the CIA thought that they were above the law (sic). They
thought that the law did not apply to them. They have put America at risk.
They have put our troops on the front lines at risk because they broke the
law."

With all due respect, Congressman Hoekstra, if you would exercise your
oversight responsibilities, the system of checks and balances could work,
and folks like McCarthy would not have to go to the press.

Equally feckless would be recourse to the Senate intelligence committee
chaired by Pat Roberts (R-Kan.), patsy for the White House since day one of
his tenure. No need to rehearse the evidence here. You may wish, though, to
check out Scott Ritter's comments on the Semper Fi senator from Kansas -
"Semper Fraud, Senator Roberts" at
http://www.antiwar.com/orig/ritter.php?articleid=5537.

Mary's Motivation

And so, assuming there is substance to press allegations that McCarthy
has admitted she talked with the press, small wonder. (At the same time, she
has now denied disclosing any classified information.) I was intrigued by a
remark the press has attributed to former CIA deputy director Dick Kerr: "I
have no idea what her motive was." Kerr added that McCarthy was a "good,
substantive person." And he was right about that - "good" in the sense that
she has that all too uncommon mix of smarts, integrity, and guts.

Well, Dick, it's a no-brainer. Is it not clear that she thought the
American people should be given the chance to know of the kidnapping,
rendition, torture, and other indignities being carried out in our name? Is
it not clear that Mary McCarthy is one of those unusually courageous
officers willing to take considerable personal risk in order to help
democracy work - information being the oxygen of democracy?

But what about her secrecy agreement? The international Truth-Telling
Coalition issued a statement on these difficult decisions on September 9,
2004. Perhaps Mary read it; perhaps now her colleagues will.

I have not spoken with Mary McCarthy in ten years, but it seems clear to
me that she and many of her colleagues are confronted by an unwelcome choice
between her oath to defend the Constitution of the United States and the
secrecy agreement all of us signed when we entered on duty with the CIA. Her
entire record shows that she did not take such restrictions lightly. None of
us did; none of us do.

But agency alumnae/i, at least those of my vintage, believe we must
always give priority to the Constitution - and the "Nuremberg obligation."

Ray McGovern works for Tell the Word, the publishing arm of the
ecumenical Church of the Saviour in Washington, DC. He was an analyst at the CIA 
for 27 years, and is on the Steering Group of VIPS.


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